Is EA's soccer franchise in trouble without the FIFA license?

If only FIFA were as easy to monopolize as American football. To retain NFL licensing rights, EA Sports only has to deal with a single entity. FIFA's licensing is an infinitely more complicated puzzle. Securing the license does not grant rights to individual players, teams, or non-World Cup competitions. According to reports, FIFA asked for $250 million to renew the agreement. EA decided it was time to part ways, and FC 24 was born.

At least in the short term, the deal doesn't appear to have harmed EA. FC 24 sold more than 11 million copies in its first week and is the most popular PlayStation Plus download of the year..But competitors hope the licensing issue is a crack in EA's armor.

Italian teams Inter Milan and AC Milan have signed deals with Konami to appear in eFootball. They were among four Italian squads that couldn't officially appear in the game. Their players, however, can and do appear in FC 24. I told you the licensing issues were a headache.

Now rumors are running rampant that Take-Two Interactive might take to the pitch with a FIFA game. It can afford the licensing fees, and through its 2K Sports label, it has a powerful presence in the space.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick fielded questions about the rumor during an August 8 earnings call, and he talked about the difficulty of making a FIFA game. He cited the licensing issues and noted a AAA soccer effort would take a long time. Those points are all true, but none of them are a no, we're not making a FIFA game.

A FIFA title would be a huge risk, and Take-Two has been largely risk-averse in recent years. With the likes of Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto, and the WWE 2K and NBA 2K franchises in its stable, sequels to established products have been doing just fine. A long, drawn-out battle with EA is the exact opposite of Take-Two's recent strategy.

Take-Two picked up the WWE license when THQ went belly up. Its NBA 2K bullied EA Sports right out of the space. Some competition would be better for consumers, but in the short-term Take-Two would spend a whole lot of money in a battle with no guarantee of winning.

The situation looks similar to 2K Sports now defunct MLB series. Sony's MLB The Show grew dominant, so much so that not even an annual $1 million giveaway could give 2K an edge. Zelnick decided that millions of dollars for a fraction of the proceeds from a game simulating America's third most popular sport wasn't worth it. Soccer is far more popular than baseball globally, but it could still take a couple of years for any new soccer title to pull even with the FC series.